Japan would welcome Britain to the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership trade deal “with open arms”, Prime Minister Shinzō Abe told the Financial Times. His remarks confirm Policy Exchange’s recent findings in Trading Tigers, which argued that “UK membership would be attractive to Japan in view of the substantial Japanese investment flows to the UK and the addition of a sizeable market.”
Alexander Downer, Policy Exchange’s Chair and a former Australian Foreign Minister, said: “I warmly welcome Prime Minister Abe’s positive message on the UK joining the Comprehensive and Progressive Trans-Pacific Partnership. Japan is the biggest member by a long way of the CP-TPP and other members are also likely to welcome the UK’s membership, as Australia has. There are not going to be any problems, as long as the UK signs up to the rules of membership.”
Read the research paper, by Dr Geoff Raby, Head of Trade Policy, and Warwick Lightfoot, Head of Economics, here.